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Steering cable lifespan?


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Looks like i will be replacing mine again in the next couple weeks. I swear this thing is only 2-3 seasons old. How many seasons are people getting out of theirs and is there a way to lube it as a normal maint point?

I do grease my rudder every spring.

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I didn't think of turning it a certain way during the winter. But it is used year round.

It's a trailered garage kept boat so the bilge is dry every time it gets back home.

I am going to try unbolting the rack portion and see if it's just the rack that needs some help when I get home.

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I have yet to replace one. I typically keep my boats 5 - 7 seasons however I'm having trouble justifying getting anything new this time around and will probably just hold on to what I have that is already paid for.

The only things I do is drain the bilge after every outing and grease the cable ports as well as the exposed areas of the cable attaching to the rudder when I winterize the boat.

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Wonder how old the cable was when I purchased it? Wonder if it could be partially dried out before I installed it?

That's probably not it. It probably has a date stamp on it if you want to check. I'm almost positive mine says 1999 on it.

You didn't directly answer Ndawg12's question, though. He asked, "does your bilge fill up with water often and the cable get wet?" You answered, "It's a trailered garage kept boat so the bilge is dry every time it gets back home."

If you are letting your bilge fill with water, you'll have steering and starter problems that a lot of us just don't have.

I have had outboard motors most of my life, and I have never had to change a bad steering cable (and that's in salt water, with the cable end exposed at the wash well). I tend to spray them with light oil (usually PB) fairly regularly (when I spray the entire engine) and turn the steering rack to rack a few times to help distribute the oil. I have been on a trip with my father in law with his two boats and had both of them break steering cables within 10 minutes of each other. Getting back to the ramp was quite entertaining. He always had trouble like that (bad trailer bearings, etc.) because he didn't do any preventive maintenance.

Preventive maintenance is, well, preventive.

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The bilge doesn't fill any more then a normal boat. No leaks, just water from getting in and out and the correct drip rate of the packing gland. I have not ever seen the auto bilge turn on. But if the cable cant deal with some water getting on it when it was designed to lay on the bottom of the bilge. Some engineer did a horrible job of designing a part.

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Think I got a line on what caused it's early demise.

I mostly notice a change in the resistance after long road trips with it. Turns out I didn't use enough guide clamps to keep it from sliding outside of the cutout for the cables I have in my sub box.

So the cable sheath is getting battered by my sub box when it gets towed a few hours on our horrible Oklahoma roads and rough water. So the next one will have a ton of those plastic wire holders on the bulk head keeping it in the place it should be.

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